


Lost and Found

by TWE



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 20:34:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2123769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWE/pseuds/TWE
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years since the end of the war with the collectors, and three since the recovery of Shepard and things seem to be normal. For James Vega, the newest human spectre, a chance to be the hero this time and fight the new universal threat brings him to a place he never thought he'd come or to rescue someone he never thought he'd see again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Found

They were called the Atraxi. Xenophobic and as hidden as Leviathan, they made their presence known as the rest of the universe cleaned up after the reapers. They came from nowhere, suddenly, ending the last of the Batarians before we even knew their names.

 

They knew us from Shepard. They heard stories about her, they found her mostly dead in the wreckage and brought her back to life again. They were everywhere, in the shadows of the war having survived three cycles underneath the pulse of the living worlds.

 

They were artisans once. Dancers and writers and painters, but they moved their creativity to science. To desiccating and dissecting bodies without a second thought just to absorb the power of their perceived enemies.

 

At first, it was the Salarians that went missing – their infiltration groups and penchant for collecting information were their immediate downfall. One group, then two, then a dozen all went missing and only one ever returned. Then it was the Asari. Then it was the Turians. All the species had their losses to the Atraxi.

 

And then there was Shepard.

 

They found her in the wreckage god only knows where. Patched her up, dissected her and put her back together again and again until she escaped. The day we found her we knew we’d won against the collectors. It was the last little straw that we needed to know that we as life had triumphed over synthetic life.

 

It’s been three years. The universe still working on the clean-up and removing the remains of a thousand collector bodies and city ruins. The Citadel is bustling now too, with long tensions all but forgotten as the worlds are all pulling together to reconstruct our future.

 

Gunfire echoed down the damp hallway followed by the sickening splat of bloodied bodies falling against the floor. Flashes from the guns lit up the Spartan black walls and illuminated the blood and filth that covered them from floor to ceiling. This was obviously a dungeon.

 

There were screams, coming from all around in all different languages as one by one the Atraxi fell leaving only the unlucky creatures that had been captured over the years.

 

James Vega was covered in green and dark ichor; his shotgun tore through the Atraxi a little better than they did other species, or even husks back in the day. Each new body that he created simply reminded him of the devastation he saw in Vancouver and London. Behind him he heard a body explode, followed by the familiar laugh of his Krogan counterpart.

 

“Is that all you got?!”

 

James shook his head and ran a hand through his hair before starting the second part of the mission: taking prisoner inventory.

 

Three Turian, two Asari, a squad of Salarian. As each cage was opened, one less name remained on James’ list until all were crossed off.

 

“Grunt. Go load them, and make sure Chakwas gives them the go ahead before you take them back up to the Exeter.”

 

“I want to kill some more.”

 

James rolled his eyes.

 

“Get them loaded. And if there’s anyone left while I look around I’ll save them for you.”

 

Grunt snorted, lowering his head to show more of his cranial armour while folding his arms across his chest. He was unimpressed, but James had proved himself in battle.

 

“You better,” he uttered, moving towards the shuttle and the survivors.

 

James turned back and looked at the scene before him. Sighing, he loaded another thermal clip into his shotgun and headed back into the compound. One last look around, and then they could get out of this Atraxi hell hole.

 

James wasn’t usually jumpy, but the random shuffle of Alliance soldiers in their armour was a sound he’d not heard in a long time. He moved between the lower ranks, and deeper back into the compound. Each of the cell doors open and the survivors having been moved from within. There was nothing left.

 

He was about to turn back to the entrance when he heard it. He wasn’t sure what it was at first, but the noise came again. One step, then two, then out in a run towards the noises as they came faster and faster. It wasn’t long until he found himself standing in front of an almost seamless door. If it hadn’t have been for the sounds he would have thought this another wall panel and never found it.

 

The soldier reached out his hand, the door clicking open and giving way as if it wasn’t locked at all. Blinking away the light that bathed the inside in sterile white and green, James tried to focus on what was inside the room.

 

He’d never seen one up close before. Not without immediately putting a hole in it somewhere, making a mess of the corpse. Its skin was a sickly shade of purple, reminding James of an ill Asari. In its mouth as it hissed at the soldier’s arrival were teeth like he’d seen at SeaWorld, jagged and gnarled like they were made to chew flesh from bone.

 

Maybe they weren’t experimenting; maybe they were eating the prisoners one at a time. The Atraxi’s fingers were more like tentacles, boneless and sliding over the filthy, hairless skin of the being behind it.

 

The head of the Atraxi turned before the rest of the body came about. Adjusting the shot on his gun, James pointed and the Atraxi pounced. The shot surprised even James as blue green blood splattered out behind and spilled over the walls and the prisoner.

 

As the body paled and fell away James Vega finally got a look at the final prisoner. The breath was sucked from his body as he saw the thin, filth-covered creature behind him. Dread-locked hair and matted beard, misshapen nose from where it was obviously broken, and now covered in the quick-drying ooze that passed for blood.

 

It wasn’t until he saw those eyes that he knew.

 

“Dios!” the exclamation came as a breathless curse.

 

“Alenko.”

 

 

 

“And then what happened?” Anderson leaned forward, moving his hands from where it rested on his chin to holding the table he sat behind. Commander James Vega stood at attention in the middle of the room with his senior officers’ eyes all on him around the horseshoe panel, his jaw tight and his eyes forward.

 

“Grunt came and complained that I didn’t keep him any to kill like I promised. We got the human back on board the Exeter and Chakwas did a thorough check of him.”

 

What he didn’t want to say was that on seeing James he screamed. As if seeing another human was causing him the same pain as being stabbed in the chest with a hot poker.

 

Grunt had heard the commotion – the gunshot and the screams. And when he came in he saw the grotty human curled around the dead Atraxi.

 

“Just shoot it. We can say they did it.”

 

James shot a look back at Grunt, one that would have killed a lesser being, but only served to make the Krogan huff and turn back out the door. James moved closer to the Major, like one would a skittish deer.

 

With one hand outstretched, he slowly got closer to the other man who held onto the corpse like one would a beloved companion or lover. James’ nose crinkled at the idea that the Atraxi would use him like that.

 

“Hi Major…do you remember me?” He asked, trying to meet Alenko’s eyes across the void of understanding the space that still remained between them.

 

“I’m James. Vega. We were on the Normandy together. And on the shuttle out of there. Do you remember when we crashed?” He asked, slipping a little closer. They both jumped, however, when Grunt slipped a little from where they were leaning against the doorframe.

 

Grunt shrugged and moved from the door, clearing the hallway of people while James tried to get through to their former shipmate. When he turned back, the Atraxi was held hard against his chest, and while there were tears in those big hazel eyes, all James could see behind them was confusion; as if his body were betraying the conscious thoughts in his mind.

 

“Come on…if you come with me you can have a shower. Shepard used to tell me how much you liked her shower. She’s alive, you know. She’d be happy to see you.”

 

Alenko’s hands turned to white-knuckled fists against the corpse and when he finally spoke, the former Major’s voice came out like he’d swallowed a gallon of sand.

 

“She—pard?” He asked, looking down at the Atraxi soon after as he tried to make his decision. James felt sorry for him, and by the looks of him he had to have been down here for months. As a Commander, sure he’d heard rumours of the great Spectre, Kaidan Alenko, had gone missing on a mission while looking for Shepard bare months after the last showdown on Earth.

 

James, along with the entire Galaxy had thought them both dead and gone. In their absence he had been named the third (and for a time only) human Spectre to give all the races something and someone to rally behind with their heroes gone. And now his hero was here, a bare shadow of a man holding onto the enemy as if it were his lifeline.

 

“Yeah. Shepard,” James managed to choke out. “We can go see her if you let go of the Atraxi and you come with me. She’s always talking about you,” he lied. Lola didn’t talk to him as much as he’d have liked since he earned his command. She too was still recovering from what the Atraxi had done to her.

 

To his surprise, Alenko nodded, kissing what James thought may have been a temple on the misshapen, ovular head of the dead Atraxi, before pushing it from his lap. It took him a couple of goes to stand, his knees shaky as if he’d not been upright like this for months.

 

The light showed every rib and bone as it poked through his almost translucent skin. It stretched over his frame and jutted out disgustingly. No muscle tone at all meant he’d been underfed and under exercised and held for more than just a couple of months. James stood and moved closer to Alenko, offering a muscled arm for balance and support of the Major.

 

What took him five minutes to find took almost an hour to get back.

 

“You’re late,” Esteban shouted over the engines as they roared. He and Chakwas were the only two left on the platform, the other prisoners already lifted and gone back to the Exeter. The good doctor hurried over ahead of the pilot, reaching to touch Alenko on the shoulder. She smiled kindly when the Major pulled away.

 

“It’s alright, major. We’re going to take you home.”

 

James and Cortez shared a look, telling each other the story with their eyes and ended with Steve nodding and heading back into the cockpit while James himself helped the skinny form on board the shuttle.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates on this will be slow, but they will be done between Assignments and other works. If you like it, drop me a line.


End file.
